is there nothing to start with?

It’s that time again: it’s too dry in the Netherlands again. The KNMI reported a precipitation deficit of 86 millimeters this week. 2022 is approaching 1976, still the driest spring ever recorded. What lessons have we learned in recent dry years that we can use now?

‘Series of summer days ahead’, reports Weeronline.nl Thursday elated. Saturday ‘plenty of sun’, Sunday ‘the mercury will rise to summer values’. Then: ‘A series of warm days.’ And dry, except for a local splash of rain, too dry. Because with the current outlook for the next 14 days, the upward trend of the precipitation deficit will probably continue. The KNMI reported a precipitation deficit of 86 millimeters this week. A rain shower like that of Wednesday evening will not help. The result: harvests threaten to fail (farmers’ association ZLTO already warned on Wednesday of price increases for, among other things, potatoes if it does not start raining within two weeks), nature reserves are damaged, dikes threaten to tear due to a top layer that is too dry.

And nature has already had a hard time, after the already very dry summers of 2018, 2019 and 2020. Last year the groundwater levels were almost back to normal, but then extreme flooding followed in South Limburg, where the Meuse overflowed.

This year started off erratically in terms of precipitation and drought: the first months – especially in February – fell more than usual. 209 millimeters, while 160 millimeters is called ‘normal’. ‘So there is on average enough water, but not always at the right time and in the right place,’ concluded the Union of Water Boards last week.

Have we learned anything from the past dry years?

‘Yes’, says Niko Wanders, hydrologist at Utrecht University. ‘Due to the so-called Delta Plan, projects have gained momentum, particularly at the local and regional level.’ But, he says, ‘A more robust drought policy is needed at the national level. I don’t expect that to improve within five years.’

More water in IJsselmeer

Climate effect or not, it is certain that weather extremes are increasing. Record droughts in the spring, and otherwise heavy flooding like last year. On the other side of the globe, in the Australian state of Queensland, up to 400 millimeters of rain threatened to fall in three days this week.

A sign of the times in our own country: while this week soldiers and employees of the water board De Stichtse Rijnen held a crisis exercise around the Utrechtse Heuvelrug according to a scenario in which there was high water, the rest of the Netherlands fought against the reality of increasing drought. In order to stay afloat in this dynamic, the government has earmarked 250 million euros for tackling drought in the next five years. Regional authorities are contributing about 550 million euros.

Unlike previous dry years, measures were quickly announced in various places last week. Rijkswaterstaat, for example, raised the water level of the IJsselmeer by 5 centimeters this week. The discharge sluices at the Afsluitdijk were closed while the IJssel could continue to supply water. Water boards in the area can thus continue to supply water to ditches, streams, agricultural and nature areas.

At the same time, the Veluwemeer will also receive extra water from the adjacent Markermeer. This reduces the chance of the growth of blue-green algae, a risk when the water is too low. The bacteria (not algae) leads to bad smells, to death in fish and can cause itching and irritation in humans.

There are more measures, depending on the region. In the southeast of North Brabant, there is now a ban on pumping water from streams and ditches near the Keersop, a side stream of the Dommel, to protect plants and animals in and around the water. At Tholen in Zeeland, the Volkerak-Zoommeer has been additionally flushed to prevent salinization, another consequence of (among other things) drought.

Last month a successful trial was conducted on Texel for the first time with a system for storing excess rainwater under pressure in the soil via pipes, so that it can be used to irrigate fields during dry periods such as this. The trial, now carried out on two plots of 25 to 30 hectares, is to be expanded to hold some 6 to 7 million cubic meters of fresh water annually, and to make the island’s farmers self-sufficient in their water use.

Stricter measures

All beautiful, but is it enough? No, thinks hydrologist Wanders. ‘It really helps us to raise the water level in the IJsselmeer by 5 centimeters, but if it gets warmer next week, as predicted, about 4 to 5 millimeters per day will evaporate. Then you will be through your extra stock in 10 days, if only because of evaporation.’

What it lacks, as far as he is concerned, is stricter legislation. ‘Governments throughout Europe can announce a ban on unnecessary water use, except in the Netherlands. Here’s just a non-mandatory appeal not to water your lawn and not to wash your car, but there are no hard measures.’

This is different elsewhere, says Wanders: ‘In Belgium, facilities are now required to be made in new-build houses to be able to store up to five thousand liters of rainwater, including for flushing the toilet. Something like this doesn’t immediately solve the entire drought problem, but it does contribute to awareness and reduces the pressure on water use during peak hours.’

According to agricultural hydrologist Gé van den Eertwegh of the consultancy KnowH2O, the lack of legislation in the Netherlands, but its enforcement. ‘There is no need for legislation aimed at citizens. The major consumers of water are really agriculture, industry and water companies. The government should increase the pressure on provinces to announce and enforce tough measures.’

The first thing that needs to be done now, according to Van den Eertwegh, is to limit and reduce water abstraction. ‘But apparently that’s too complicated or too expensive, and then we’ll leave it alone. Nobody enforces, typically Dutch’, says the hydrologist.

Conflicting interests

In a report on drought in the sandy areas, Van den Eertwegh, together with a number of other experts, outlined solutions to the drought problem. In addition to stronger governance, the countryside must be redeveloped, the authors write. ‘We have to accept that not everything can be done at every location, for example due to wetting,’ the report states. Different crops should be grown in different areas: on drier sandy soils, for example, species that require less water than those that can be grown on wetter soils. According to the report, the groundwater level should also be raised structurally and rainwater should be retained for longer.

Minister Mark Harbers of Infrastructure and Water Management also hinted in the talk show on Wednesday evening Beau on similar insights: farming (and building) in places where the water level can handle it, and not in places where the water management does not allow it.

The implementation of such measures immediately encounters an administrative phenomenon: drought policy is a swirling sea in which interests constantly clash. Representatives of interest groups also sit on the boards of the 21 water boards in the Netherlands. The groundwater level alone leads to a recurring conflict between farmers and conservationists. The latter want higher groundwater levels in order to preserve meadow birds and special plants, among other things, while farmers benefit from a lower groundwater level, because their increasingly heavier tools do not get stuck in the soil.

‘Exciting future’

That schism resurfaced in the south of the country last week. After the provinces of Limburg and Noord-Brabant announced in July that they wanted to limit the options for sprinkling (spraying) around nature reserves in the Peel in the event of drought, the agricultural interest groups LLTB, ZLTO and ABM resigned from the consultations in protest. The farmers fear that in certain periods it is no longer allowed to water at all, and believe that using weirs in ditches is already doing enough to conserve water. They also point to other large parties that extract water from the land, such as industry and drinking water extraction.

In the meantime, hydrologists are anxiously waiting to see how the drought will develop this season. The discharge of the Rhine at Lobith is expected to drop below 1,400 cubic meters after the weekend. That is the moment when there is officially an ‘imminent water shortage’. Hydrograaf Wanders: ‘The measures taken now bring us a little further compared to previous years. I cannot see into the future, but my eyes are now on foreign countries. The major rivers in Germany and Switzerland are already lower, the snow has already largely melted there, the water level in the Swiss reservoirs is also lower than in other years. That could be exciting, also for the Netherlands.’